Continuing in my unintentional (now intentional) quest to watch every major version of Dracula.
Bram Stoker's Dracula aka the Francis Ford Coppola version:
Wow. Isn't this a director most people like? Isn't this a story most people like? What happened?
The film is an awful, disjointed mess. There is no focus. It schizophrenically switches back and forth between a period piece, a romance, and an action movie; with shades of everything else in-between. The scene transitions are rapid, unexpected, and make no sense. Two or three characters may act as narrators in a span of five minutes. Far too many characters are entirely forgettable but nonetheless won't go away (why does whatsherface need three boyfriends and why do all of them have to be introduced in less than a minute and then stay throughout the ENTIRE MOVIE?). The closest thing we have to a main character among the dozens of glorified bit parts is Dracula himself, and we can't keep track of him. He's prone to disappearing for long periods of time, and when he does show up you're not sure what he's going to look like. I counted at least seven humanoid forms, plus countless animals.
Blagh I'm sure some people love this movie so I'm just going to shut up. The effects are decent, at least, as are the costumes. If it just had more focus I might have loved it.
Blacula:
You know, if this weren't so grounded in the seventies, it would actually be a legitimately good addition to the Dracula story. The plot is sound and Mamuwaldi himself (who is only called Blacula once, by the way!) is surprisingly believable. The only problem is... well, it was the seventies. With a name like "Blacula" you can expect a lot of embarassing attempts at racial tension, even when it doesn't make a lot of sense (the two prominent police officers seem to be a good team except for the accusations of racism that come out of nowhere), and there's a wholly unnecessary amount of homophobia present. Also, most of the major characters spend literally every night at a disco and/or sport giant afros and ridiculous outfits.
It's a delicate mix of incredibly cringe-inducing and legitimately good. I guess that's pretty good for a blaxploitation film.
The Brave Little Toaster:
THERE GOES THE SUN
HERE COMES THE NIGHT
SOMEBODY TURN ON THE LIII-IIIGHT
I decided to watch this since I realized that I had never actually seen the whole thing. On the surface, there's some problems. The voice actors playing the humans are atrocious, some of the character designs seem poorly-planned, and a lot of the song lyrics seem to have been determined by scrambling for words that rhyme ("he will put the voodoo in the stew"? What?) Underneath, though, it's a great film that tackles territory that kids' films don't dare to tread with a good deal of subtlety. I miss the days when Disney had the guts to make something like this. The film feels like an experiment to make the most basic, dehumanized characters ever (only Kirby has a name, the toaster and the blanket both have indeterminate genders, and the radio doesn't ever have a face), and then have the audience nonetheless feel for them while all these awful things happen to them.
Given that Toy Story 3 was very clearly inspired by this film's overwhelming sense of hopelessness and the fear of confronting one's own mortality, and how dark Disney seems to be getting lately*, I'd like to think that this film might get a bit more attention soon.
(secretly, I'd love to see a modern remake of this that fixes up the handful of issues I have with it)
*For one thing, there's Epic Mickey. For another, the rereleases this year include Dumbo, Fantasia, and The Black Cauldron; all infamous for scaring the shit out of kids. Plus, y'know, making their own horror imprint and getting Guillermo Del Fucking Toro to make a bunch of horror movies for kids.
